ROME: In an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

The changes created “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency’s food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before – a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption – much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.

Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel

from a friend

Maharaji had given Ram Dass two instructions: love everyone, and tell the truth. If Ram Dass felt hate for someone and told the truth, that was not acceptable. “Tell the truth and love everyone,” the guru said. What I felt in Maui was how far Ram Dass has moved in developing the capacity to love every soul.

When I say the Americans cannot succeed, I am not saying that this can be done without the Americans. It has to be done with the Americans. You cannot ignore a party to this mess which has 150,000 soldiers. They [the Americans] used to tell me–when I told them to get the neighbors together and talk–We ask them, we are begging them, but they refuse. I told them why they are refusing is that you are telling them, Come and help us implement our policy. They are too polite to say, Your policy is rotten. So they just say, No, No, No. But if you tell them, Let’s sit down and work out a policy together, because we accept that our policy has failed, then it’s a different proposition.